“The butterfly has become to Mark Grotjahn what the target is to Kenneth Noland, the zip was to Barnett Newman, and the color white is to Robert Ryman. Grotjahn’s abstracted geometric figure is suitably elusive. In fact, the more familiar it becomes, the more he refines its ability to surprise and, perhaps paradoxically, takes it further away from actual butterflyness.”
Tate, London
Image: © Tate
Artwork: © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko ARS, NY and DACS, London
Untitled (Yellow Butterfly over Red) is an exquisite example of Mark Grotjahn’s celebrated Butterfly series which he produced from 2001 to 2008. Executed in 2004, the present work epitomises Grotjahn’s experimental methodology and complex conceptual practice. Exultant in vivid, monochromatic yellow, the present work exudes an illusive, kaleidoscopic depth through its precisely delineated geometries. Typical of his Butterfly paintings, the present work employs two potential vanishing points along the central vertical axis, directly interrogating the conventions and traditions of trompe l’oeil Renaissance perspective. Grotjahn places emphasis on this radiating structure itself, taking form as the painterly subject within his unique brand of geometrical abstraction. Simultaneously referencing natural phenomena, the vertical strip at the centre of the composition delineates the “butterfly’s” spine, from which the radiating bands emanate outwards to establish the dynamic trajectories of its wings. Iconic and instantly recognisable, Grotjahn’s Butterfly paintings have come to represent the artist’s acclaimed practice and the present work is a testament to his longstanding investment in unravelling the structures of geometric formalism.
"Grotjahn's butterflies hover precipitously close to the line between abstract geometry and illusionistic spatiality, displaying a kind of graphic unconscious that constitutes a paradoxically systematic disruption of a rational and orderly system."
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Image: © National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Artwork: © The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York / DACS, London 2024
RIGHT: Josef Albers, Homage to the Square: Two Whites Between Two Yellows, 1958
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Image: © Bridgeman Images
Artwork: © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / DACS 2024
At the liminal edges of Untitled (Yellow Butterfly over Red), Grotjahn purposely reveals the underlying substrate of red; as Douglas Fogle observes, such a schema reveals “an archaeological depth (the history of their own construction) and a questioning of the work’s stability (these are not uniformly hermetic surfaces)” (Douglas Fogle, “The Monolith and the Butterfly,” in: Exh. Cat., New York, Blum & Poe, Mark Grotjahn: Butterfly Paintings, 2014, p. 38). This tension between the seen and unseen rests at the heart of the present work and Grotjahn’s Butterfly series more broadly. Notably, although founded on a kind of seemingly static, geometric minimalism, each rigorously delineated vector carries a visual energy and dynamism: “While there is an almost classical clarity to the formal organization, the experience is alive, alert and open – a play of perception and understanding that remains restlessly and resiliently incapable of resolution” (Gary Garrels, “Mark Grotjahn,” in: Exh. Cat., Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art, 54th Carnegie International, 2004-05, p. 154). Thick layers of oil painted precisely within these radiating chevrons simultaneously obscure and reveal the underlying plane, accentuated further by the monochromatic colour scheme. This dynamic contrast in form and colour aligns with the fractured geometry and densely textured surface, resulting in a composition that vibrates with mesmerising pattern and elusive energy.
“I’m tired of relying on the face to make my paintings. I want to focus on movement, colour, and line. And texture. And application.”
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Image: © Museum of Fine Arts, Houston / Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund / Bridgeman Images
Artwork: © Jasper Johns/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2024
This oscillation between abstraction and representation is punctured throughout by traces of the artist’s hand. The thin, ridged veins which delineate each radiating band promote a gesturally material visual experience that documents Grotjahn’s artistic process and shifts the work away from the hard-edged brushstrokes of formal abstraction. As noted by critic Barry Schwabsky, "[The Butterfly works] announce themselves with a powerful physical and optical presence […] but still more powerful is this something else that can’t quite be seen, can’t quite be felt, though one can’t help but sense that it’s there, hovering, somewhere behind the painting” (Barry Schwabsky, “Vehicles of Fascination,” in: Exh. Cat., Aspen Art Museum, Mark Grotjahn, 2012, p. 62). The painterly process of the Butterfly series evolved from an earlier body of tiered perspective paintings, composed of multiple stacked sets of perspectival vanishing points. As he recalled, “I was always interested in line and color. I wanted to find a motif that I could experiment with for a while. I did a group of drawings over a period of six to twelve months. The drawing that I chose was one that resembled the three-tier perspective, and that is what I went with” (the artist quoted in: Arcy Douglass, “Arcy Douglass in conversation with Mark Grotjahn,” Portland Art, 6 October 2010, online). Attuned to art historical precedent and graphically emphasising the vitality of abstract painting today, Untitled (Yellow Butterfly over Red) is a masterful example of Grotjahn’s complex and sensual artistic practice, bringing into collision geometric abstraction and traditional Western representational painting with explosive and powerful effect.